Mitch Mcconnell

(CNN) — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is still making history, even after her death. Ginsburg, who died last Friday due to complications of metastatic pancreas cancer, will become the first woman to lie in

(CNN) — Donald Trump on Monday launched a three-week quest to save his presidency, behaving as though the pandemic that has killed 215,000 Americans was already a memory in front of a packed-in crowd -- even amid chilling new warnings about the resurgent virus. In his first rally since his...Mitch McConnellRepublicanCoronavirus Disease 2019Social DistancingElection DayPandemicDemocratic Party (United States)Patient Protection And Affordable Care ActUnited States Senate Committee On The JudiciaryTrump CampaignPresidential CampaignGOP PollsPresidential PollsCapitol HillTrump 's Supreme CourtDonald TrumpJoe BidenMitch McconnellAnthony FauciHillary ClintonJake TapperLindsey GrahamErin BurnettJaime HarrisonJoni ErnstEzekiel EmanuelAmy Coney BarrettRead Full Story

(CNN) — In the weirdest of twists at the end of his presidency, President Donald Trump is now in league with Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders over $2,000 Covid-19 relief checks, doing battle with Republican leaders over Pentagon policy and warning the political party he overtook and remade in his own image could soon be dead. Strange days at the end of the Trump era. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has a solution to anger both Democrats and Trump. It's an elegant form of political chess and a cynical form of governance that will both maintain the status quo of $600 relief checks and dispatch Trump's other demands, leaving the President with nothing to show for his recent tweets.The standoff over coronavirus relief checks entered a new phase when a bill that passed through the House with mostly Democratic support landed in the GOP-controlled Senate. Most House Republicans opposed it and others, like Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, perhaps unwilling to choose between their mercurial leader and the concerns about profligate spending they'll be dusting off as soon as he leaves office, skipped the House vote altogether."Unless Republicans have a death wish, and it is also the right thing to do, they must approve the $2,000 payments ASAP. $600 IS NOT ENOUGH!" Trump said on Twitter shortly after McConnell blocked consideration of the more generous House proposal Democrats sent him.McConnell is primed to tie the $2,000 relief check proposal, which could pass, with Trump's unrelated demand to strip tech companies of some liability protection -- a forced marriage of policies that have nothing to do with each other besides Trump's interest that could ensure both measures die in the Senate.New interest in doing 'the right thing'That Trump's now concerned with doing "the right thing" on the Covid relief checks after months of downplaying the pandemic has certainly changed political momentum. Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, running for their political lives before twin January 5 runoff elections in Georgia, have both now endorsed the idea of larger checks, matching their Democratic challengers.Trump plans to visit Georgia and campaign for Loeffler and Perdue. And Loeffler, at least, said she'll vote any way Trump wants."I've stood by the President 100% of the time, I'm proud to do that and I've said absolutely, we need to get relief to Americans now, and I will support that," she told reporters during a campaign stop Tuesday.Rediscovering the debtThe contours of those races mean everything to McConnell, who very much wants to stay majority leader, but to do so needs Republicans to win at least one race to retain a 51-seat majority in the chamber.McConnell's also got to contend with the larger number of Republicans in the Senate who will oppose them.Sen. Pat Toomey, the budget-conscious Pennsylvania Republican, told CNN's Jake Tapper Tuesday that larger checks would add to the national debt and send help to Americans who don't need it. The country's economic problems, he argued, demand more focused relief."We've got very acute problems within certain employment groups, right? People who work for restaurants and hotels and travel and entertainment -- devastated," he said. "But we do not have a global macroeconomic depression underway at all. So it makes no sense to be sending this out to everybody who has a pulse."The Democratic retort to the deficit argument is simple: Why now and why not when Trump was pushing tax cuts?"Senate Republicans added nearly 2 trillion to deficits to give corporations a massive tax cut," Schumer, the Senate minority leader, said Tuesday. "So I don't want to hear it that it costs too much to help working families getting a check when they're struggling to keep their jobs and pay their family families and live a normal life."How we got to $600 checksClearly Republicans will have to square their concerns about deficit spending with their support for the populist outgoing President who cares mostly about himself.Former Rep. Mia Love, a CNN analyst, said she does not envy the choice Republicans will have to make. "They have got to decide whether they're going to get back to the fiscally disciplined Republican Party, whether they're going to continue to follow the President. I do not see any win-win for them to continue to follow the President at all costs," Love said Tuesday.In fact, it was only after months of negotiations led by Trump's Treasury secretary that Republicans and Democrats agreed on the $600 payments for many Americans that the President signed into law on Sunday.McConnell, while he notably did not promise a vote on the larger checks, said the Senate would consider the matter in some way this week, along with Trump's calls to undo what's known as "Section 230," a piece of US telecommunications law that shields big tech companies from some lawsuits.Watch the clockWhat McConnell did promise is a vote Wednesday to override Trump's veto of the annual bill that authorizes Pentagon policy, although Sen. Bernie Sanders has indicated he'll try to hold up that defense bill without a vote on the larger checks, putting him and Trump strangely in league on that one issue. Trump wanted to tie that defense bill to the tech company issue. Now McConnell will tie it to the relief checks instead. Time could be on McConnell's side since this Congress ends on January 5. If the Senate can't or won't act by then, all these measures would need new votes.McConnell's solution may not satisfy Trump, who's already been described as moody during a winter holiday at Mar a Lago, despite golfing every day. Sources told CNN's Kate Bennett the President is angry about cosmetic changes to the comparatively small digs he'll soon call home, and wondering why there aren't more world leaders and VIPs angling to call on him as he nears the end of his administration.He can look to one piece of good news for his ego. Defeat at the polls didn't keep him from becoming the most admired man in America for the first time, according to an annual Gallup survey released Tuesday. It has, for years, been Barack Obama, Trump's predecessor, whose wife Michelle, is still the most admired woman. Gallup noted Republicans were united behind Trump in the poll, while Democrats were split behind Obama, President-elect Joe Biden, and Dr. Anthony Fauci.Biden and Fauci will soon be working together and the President-elect on Tuesday announced his plan to ramp up distribution of vaccines as the US falls behind schedule in deploying millions of doses to Americans around the country. That'll change when he takes office, Biden promised, promising to "move heaven and Earth.""This is going to be the greatest operational challenge we've ever faced as a nation," he said. "But we're going to get it done. But it's going to take a vast new effort that's not yet underway."Senate RepublicansPoliticsRepublican LeadersDemocratsCNNPentagonHouseDemocraticASAPTwitterCovidAmericansRepublican PartyCongressGOP-controlled SenateMitch McconnellDonald TrumpNancy PelosiChuck SchumerBernie SandersKelly LoefflerDavid PerduePat ToomeyJake TapperMia LoveJoe BidenAnthony FauciBarack Obama

Democratic Senate hopeful Jaime Harrison of South Carolina raised $57 million between July and September. Sara Gideon in Maine raised more than $39 million in that same period. And Mark Kelly in Arizona brought in $38.7 million. These eye-popping numbers shattered the previous record for fundraising, Beto O'Rourke's $38 million cash haul in the third quarter of 2018. Now the Democrats are spending that money in the face of massive Republican super PAC funds, report CBS News political unit associate producers Sarah Ewall-Wice and Eleanor Watson. And it's left many Republican candidates with more cash on hand than the Democrats in the final weeks of the race. In South Carolina, where the Senate race is unexpectedly tight, Harrison's $57 million in three months was more than double what Republican incumbent Senator Lindsey Graham raised with $28 million, a state record for a Republican. Records show from July through September, Harrison spent more than $55 million. According to his October FEC filing, Harrison paid AL Media LLC more than $42 million over three months for TV, radio and digital advertising. He also spent another $6.5 million for digital advertising and services to Mothership Strategies, and $2 million to Blueprint Strategy LLC for radio and billboard advertising. $641,000 went to 'direct mailing services.' That amounts to more than $51 million spent on ads and direct mail alone. But after being outraised roughly 2 to 1, Graham's operating expenses covered about half of what he raised, $26.5 million and another $1.75 million was transferred to the state Republican party. In their pre-general election filings, Harrison raised another $22 million in just 14 days from October 1 through 14, but ended the period with just $3.5 million cash on hand. Graham raised less than half of that but had $7.3 million as of October 14.Read Full Story Democratic SenateBeto O'RourkeSouth CarolinaCBS NewsMaineIndianaRepublicansGOP VotersThe SenateCongressPAC ATTACK Pro-BidenRNCDFL -RRB- PartyMothership StrategiesTexas Supreme CourtJaime HarrisonBeto O'rourkeDonald TrumpJoe BidenMark KellyLindsey GrahamMitch McconnellDebra ToddKendra HornJocelyn BensonGina Ortiz JonesBill StepienSara GideonBernie SandersAdamKathy BoockvarJim HagedornTina SmithDan FeehanMike PenceStephanie BiceGreg AbbottKaren PenceWill HurdAmy Klobuchar

HAPPY SATURDAY. ONE WEEK AND ONE DAY AGO, RUTH BADER GINSBURG died. NOW, WE ARE 38 DAYS from Election Day, and at 5 p.m. today, President DONALD TRUMP will introduce AMY CONEY BARRETT as his nominee for the Supreme Court

The Washington Post is providing live election updates free to all readers. Get more election news delivered to your inbox by signing up for The Trailer newsletter. President Trump will travels to the Midwest on Saturday for back-to-back evening rallies in Michigan and Wisconsin, two states he won by a hair in 2016 in surprise upsets. Neither side is taking those states for granted this time.WisconsinMidwestWhite HouseThe Washington PostRepublican PollsPresidential PollsSouth Carolina PollsTrump CampaignNational PollsRNCMSNBCU.S. Postal ServicePriorities USAFoxNielsenDonald TrumpJoe BidenMike PenceKamala HarrisBarack ObamaHillary ClintonAmy KlobucharJoy ReidMitch McconnellRonna McdanielDavid PerdueScott BrownJon OssoffAmy Coney BarrettRead Full Story

The passage of a $900 billion coronavirus relief package after more than seven months of negotiations and recriminations has President Trump and congressional leaders racing to declare victory and blame political opponents for the long delay. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) are...Read Full StorySenate RepublicansTax CreditsPoliticsPublic HealthGOP LawmakersHouse DemocratsModerate RepublicansTrumpThe White HouseThe Federal Reserve 'sAmericansFox NewsDepartment Of EnergyFederal ReserveTreasuryMitch McconnellPat ToomeyJoe ManchinSusan CollinsMark WarnerMitt RomneyBrian KilmeadeNancy PelosiJoe BidenChris Van HollenSteven MnuchinJohn Cornyn

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Absentee voting kicked off in battleground Michigan Thursday, and multiple clerks across Kent County spoke to NBC News as they worked to mail out the first big batch of absentee ballots. This year

US election 2020: Trump ready to return to public events, says doctor. US President Donald Trump has completed his course of treatment for Covid-19 and can return to public engagements this weekend, his physician has sai

Democratic House lawmakers on Monday unveiled a $2.2 trillion package of coronavirus relief funds intended to 'avert catastrophe for schools, small businesses, restaurants, performance spaces, airline workers and others.